Newborn babies are incontinent, i.e., they are unable to voluntarily retain their bodily discharges and, instead, urinate and defecate reflexively. As they mature physiologically, children typically achieve urinary and fecal continence, that is, they develop the ability to voluntarily retain their urine and feces. Coincident with the development of continence, children typically develop the ability to voluntarily urinate and defecate, and cease reflexive elimination. This development of continence and of voluntary elimination, in place of reflexive elimination, may be accelerated and/or guided by caregivers through associative and conditioning techniques of training the child. For the purpose of this invention, the term “continence training” is used to denote training for both continence, itself, and for the voluntary elimination that is associated with continence. Thus, the term “continence training” is synonymous with what is referred to as “toilet training” or “potty training”, in some countries.
The methods of continence training of children vary widely between countries and cultures, and even within a given population. In certain cultures, the continence training is started at a relatively early age and involves intensive conditioning. For instance, continence training may begin prior to the child's first birthday, such as at 6 months of age or even earlier. The continence training methods used in these cultures are based on conditioning the child to eliminate waste upon some signal, whenever the caregiver perceives that the child needs to urinate or defecate. Such conditioning methods are often extremely time-consuming and require the caregiver to learn and detect subtle signals from the child related to potential urination and defecation. With respect to urinary continence training, such a conditioning method may ultimately lead to earlier association of the physical sensation of bladder “fullness” with the possibility of voluntary urination into the designated receptacle. However, since the caregiver does not know the state of the bladder, a significant amount of time is wasted, since the bladder is often not sufficiently full to require emptying, or to produce the desired physical sensation of fullness in the child, at the time at which the caregiver attempts the conditioning.
In other cultures, the continence training is started at a much later age, e.g., when the child demonstrates an interest in the achievement of continence, with the intention being to minimize the psychological stress on the child by waiting until the child shows an interest. In these cultures, the start of continence training is typically postponed until the child reaches about 18 to 24 months of age. As a result, many children in these cultures are not fully continence trained until age three or later, even though they are physiologically capable of achieving continence much earlier. In addition to increasing the cost of caring for the child, through necessitating the purchase of diapers, disposable training pants, etc., delayed continence training may also result in the child feeling low self-esteem, if his or her chronological peers are already continent, and may lead to issues with preschools or daycare facilities that require that children in their care are continent.
Many types of continence training methods and aids have been utilized, including progress charts, reward systems, urination “targets” for boys, electronic wetness alarms, progress scales, readiness questionnaires, and thermal and tactile training signals in disposable absorbent products, among many others. A key step in urinary continence training, in particular, is helping the child to learn to associate the physiological sensation of a “full” bladder with voluntary urination. The methods and aids described in the prior art fail to provide a direct link for the child, or the child via the caregiver, between this sensation and voluntary urination.